Elijah Hedding,

LATE SENIOR BISHOP OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH.

In this brief pen-and-ink portrait of the late Bishop Hedding, we shall not attempt to give the likeness of the man, drawn from opinion. Our purpose is to sketch what he was in a few selected facts from his history. If we succeed in this purpose, he will furnish us an instance of the influence of piety and industry, united with sound commonsense, in giving a noble character, a distinguished position, and eminent usefulness to their subject. We shall find him rising from an humble origin, without artificial aid, and with many disabilities in the way of success, by the force of his own worth, through the grace of God, from the retired condition of a Green Mountain farm-boy, to sit, in the honour of the Episcopal office, among the princes of Israel; and with a name in the Church, the mention of which is "as ointment poured forth."

What were his qualifications to become a minister? How did they fit him for the demand of his times? These are the two questions naturally first presented, and which we shall first attempt to answer. We shall then be at no loss to determine why "God counted him worthy, putting him into the ministry." It will be necessary, in this attempt, to give a little attention to his early life.

ELIJAH HEDDING was a native of Pine Plains, Dutchess County, N. Y., and born June 7, 1780. He was the eldest of quite a number of children. His mother, though at the time not a professor of religion, took great pains to instruct him, very early, in the truths of the Bible, and to teach him to pray. When not more than three or four years of age, and for several years subsequently, he was frequent and regular in the practice of secret prayer. Often, in maturer years, he referred with grateful remembrance to those instructions of his mother, as not only affecting the whole moral tendencies of his life, but expressed the belief that at that early age, the Spirit of God operated upon his heart, and made him the subject of renewing grace; and that, had he been carefully guarded in his associates, and nursed as a tender infant, it might have been said of him that from a child he had known the way of the Lord.

In the year 1789, Rev. Benjamin Abbott, the pioneer of Methodism in that region, visited the town where the parents of young Hedding lived. His word was in the demonstration of the Spirit and with power. The mother, and other relatives of young Elijah, were among the converts through his ministry. This gave him increased opportunities for religious instruction, as he usually accompanied his mother to preaching, and remained with her in the class held immediately afterward. In the class Mr. Abbott often made him the subject of his exhortations and counsels. As long as he lived, Bishop Hedding retained very vivid impressions of these exhortations, and the good influence they had upon him at the time. Had Mr. Abbott seen in that youthful subject the future able preacher, and eminent expounder of the discipline of his Church, what increased interest would he have felt, and how much

more earnestly would he have prayed, that the instruction he was giving him might none of it be in vain.

When about ten years of age, he removed with his parents to Vermont, and settled in the town of Starksboro', on the western slope of the Green Mountains. Here he lived, for nine years following, in the severe habits and duties incident to the farm-life of a pioneer in a new and rough country. Inured by his labours, and nerved by the bracing air of the mountain-side, he grew up to more than usual height, the embodiment of health, with a giant's frame and an iron constitution, apparently capable of any amount of toil, and of enduring the most protracted fatigue.

The

The religious advantages of this sparsely settled country were very limited. For a number of years, the only public ministration of the word was an occasional sermon from some Baptist minister passing through the town. greater part of his neighbours had embraced Universalism or infidelity. Young Hedding endeavoured, in turn, to believe these errors; but the early religious teaching of his mother, his frequent habit of reading the Bible, and the lingering influence of Mr. Abbott's exhortations, fortified him against them, "and," as he once said, "much as I tried and desired to embrace them, I could not bring my mind to believe either."

In the year 1795, a family from Connecticut settled in Starksboro', near where young Elijah lived. The husband and wife of this family were Methodists, and, soon after their settlement in the country, feeling a solicitude for the spiritual welfare of their neighbours, invited them to gather at their house on Sabbath days for religious services, and for several years had a "Church in their own house." At these services the man would usually sing and pray, and